Hamilton beats Vettel to Belgian GP win

Mercedes Lewis Hamilton bounced back after the summer break to win the Belgian GP on his 200th start ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen retires for the 6th time this season.

Race

The lights go out and it is a good start for the front runners as Lewis Hamilton leads, Sebastian Vettel, Valterri Bottas, Kimi Raikkonen and Max Verstappen. A superb start for Fernando Alonso has seen him jump from 10th to 7th. The McLaren driver doesn’t stay there for long though as Esteban Ocon and Romain Grosjean overtake the Spanish driver into turn 5 on lap 4 and 6. Lap 8, Max Verstappen is in trouble. It’s another retirement for the Red Bull driver as he pulls over just before turn 5.

By lap 11, the pit-stop phase has begun with Esteban Ocon and Romain Grosjean swapping the Ultrasoft tyre for the Supersoft tyre. Lap 12, Lewis Hamilton pits and goes onto the Soft tyre. Lap 14, Valterri Bottas pits and goes onto the Soft tyre. Race leader, Sebastian Vettel pits as well on lap 14 and also goes onto the Soft tyre. Lap 15, Hamilton overtakes Kimi Raikkonen who hasn’t stopped for the lead into turn 1 and back into the lead of the race. Raikkonen bails out and pits for the Soft tyre on lap 16. The Finn has received a 10 second stop-go penalty for failing to slow under yellow flags.

Lap 19, Sergio Perez is given a 5 second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. The Mexican cut the corner of turn 6 while fighting Romain Grosjean and didn’t give the position back. Lap 25, Perez pits and takes the penalty and rejoins in 12th. Lap 26, after a great start, Fernando Alonso dropped out of the top 10 and to add to his misery, it looks like another engine failure for the double world champion. He pulls into the pits and retires. Lap 29, Force India team-mate, Esteban Ocon and Perez have been running close to each other throughout the whole race and both are battling for position.

But on the run up to Eau Rouge, turns 2, 3 and 4, contact is made. Perez is ahead on the left while Ocon pulls to the right. Perez squeezes his team-mate resulting in the left side of Ocon’s front wing touches Perez’s right-rear tyre. Perez now has a puncture, Ocon has front wing damage and their is debris across the track. The Safety Car is called out with the entire field pitting. Lewis Hamilton and Valterri Bottas go onto the Soft tyre while Ferrari opt for the faster Ultrasoft tyre for Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen.

Under the Safety Car, Lewis Hamilton leads ahead of Sebastian Vettel, Valterri Bottas, Daniel Ricciardo, Kimi Raikkonen, Nico Hulkenberg, Romain Grosjean, Felipe Massa, Kevin Magnussen and the recovering Esteban Ocon. The Safety Car remains out until lap 34. On the restart Vettel is right behind and both go near enough side-by-side into turn 5. Hamilton holds onto the lead with Vettel slotting in behind. Behind, Ricciardo and Raikkonen overtake Bottas into turn 5 with Ricciardo grabbing the final podium position in 3rd, Raikkonen now 4th and Bottas dropping to 5th.